Mumbai:
Bandra resident Ali Akbar Chaudhri has moved the Bombay high court seeking his 80-year-old mother's presence in court. He has alleged that his mother has been illegally confined and assaulted by his sisters.
Chaudhri, in his habeas corpus petition, has said that his mother Nafees Chaudhri lived by herself in her first floor home in Bansri Apartment at Pali Naka. His sisters Shaheen Ali and Dureshwar Irani, according to his petition, looked after her needs and provided her with financial assistance whenever she needed it. In October 2008, Chaudhri's petition says, his sisters made his mother sign on some documents. He later found out that the documents were gift deeds under which his mother had "gifted" her house to his sisters.
Nafees then filed a suit in the high court challenging the validity of the gift deed. After they learnt about the suit, her daughters, Chaudhri's petition says, moved into her house between April and May this year and "manhandled" her.
On September 14, Chaudhri contended, he received a text message from one of the residents in his mother's building that his mother had been "beaten up mercilessly" and she was lying unconscious in her house.
On Wednesday, his advocate Ashok Saraogi told the court that when Chaudhri went to meet his mother, officers of the Khar police station met him under the building and did not let him enter his mother's flat. Moreover, he was taken to the police station and detained for five hours.
Chaudhri, who has not been able to meet his mother since then, said if the court did not ask his mother to be present in court he would lose his mother and his sisters would illegally usurp her flat.
Justice AM Khanwilkar and justice PD Kode enquired about Nafees's age and if she could travel to court. Saraogi told the court that she is active and should have no trouble coming to court. The court has asked the sisters to bring their mother to court on October 11.
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